The flame of his old wound burned in his gut.
“Dieavaul,” spat Osrith. To him it was more curse than name.
“In the flesh, more or less.” The Pale Man’s chuckle was dark as his smile, and echoed wildly around them. “Don’t make the same mistake twice, captal, lest you be an island in a sea of death,” he paused for a lingering moment, “again.”
“Your wit is dull, Dieavaul, even for an apparition in a bad dream.”
The sword appeared like a cloud at midnight from the folds of the Pale Man’s swirling cloak. Osrith’s eyes could not move from its flat, unreflective surface.
“Ah, but you know I am more than a dream, Osrith. I am worse than your pathetic guilt. I have come to warn you. To allow you an escape from the cruel, repetitious whims of destiny.”
Osrith readied his great axe, tensed for battle. “And why would you do that? Turned over a new leaf, have you?”
“It’s quite simple, Captal Turlun,” replied the Pale Man smugly, his coal black eyes glistening. “I pity you. You cannot defeat me now any more than you could have eight years gone. But now, you see, more is at stake. More than just a few lives will slip through your clumsy fingers this time, captal. And I will begin with her.”
The Pale Man struck out with his blade toward Evynine’s silent, motionless form, but stopped short at the sound of Osrith’s shout.
“No!” He watched the blade, poised above her defenseless flesh, and clenched his jaws.
“Send out the dreamstone, captal. You will know where to find me. Send it out and forget you ever saw it. Return to skulk in the Deeps with the underkin, away from this graveyard and its resentful caretakers. It is in your power to save them or damn them. I leave it to you.”
Osrith shifted his grip on the weapon in his hands. “Bugger off,” he replied dryly.
“That choice is yours, captal,” returned Dieavaul smugly, “but remember it is just that. Your choice.”
In a flash of blood and midnight, Evynine fell backward, and the Pale Man vanished into a thin vapor of soft contemptuous laughter. Osrith willed himself to awaken, but lingered in the thrall of his gruesome vision, fixated by the spectacle sprawled bleeding at his feet. He could feel his sleeping body refuse his command to rise, his numb lips ignore his desire to yell. He clawed at consciousness, but his eyelids were sealed by a will of their own, latched down over eyes that strained to see once more into the waking world.
But his struggles and desire were for naught. He was trapped and helpless.
Helpless again.
CHAPTER FIVE
RAOGMYZTSANOGG
DIEAVAUL shook in a violent spasm as he awakened from his trance, his dark eyes quivering and a cold sweat beading on his skin. The surge of iiyir brought about by his communion with Shadow threatened to burst the dam of his will, but he diffused it slowly with the composure of countless years of experience. The remnants of the flood trickled impatiently back from whence it came, to the powerful ethereal flow of the ur’iiyir, the World Tides.
With a deep breath, he welcomed the familiar surroundings his tent provided: the touch of the Maccalite wool he rested on, softened by the delicate texture of a layer of fine silks; the amber flame of a solitary candle; the bundle of garments and supplies near the entrance; and the comforting non-gleam of ilnymhorrim resting in his lap. Even the faint stench of his hrummish bodyguards did not offend his sensitive nostrils. He gathered it all in and focused on it, centering himself back in the realm of the real. To be lost in the nether-realms was a prospect that held a small amount of fear even for him.
Dieavaul stood on shaky legs and strode into the waiting night. His guards fell in behind him, their awe and fear barely cloaked by their discipline. He inhaled deeply and sheathed the sword, resting his left hand on its pommel.
The camp was active but silent. Hrumm warriors made their way purposefully here and there while the smaller dringli scurried about underfoot. In the distance, the walls of Kirith Vae stood defiantly on the landscape. What his army was preparing to undertake was a formidable task. This same fortress had countless times protected the borders of Providayne from westerly invasion, and the Dacadian Empire before that. That his army was so near and as yet undiscovered was miracle enough, but to accomplish what he had been ordered still seemed daunting.
Too soon, Dieavaul thought, frowning. Malagch’s patience is ever a thing in motion, but this game must be played with a steady hand.
The Pale Man looked over his small force, tucked discretely behind the trees that dotted the edge of the gentle sloping hills where they were encamped. They bore no banners, wore no colors; indeed, they would appear no more than a wild band of marauders if discovered.
Excepting for his own presence, of course, and that of his three urghuar. Dieavaul eyed the masked hrummish shamans as they began their guttural chant. The three humans were bound to the trunk of a fallen oak, their eyes wide and their cheeks streaked with tears. Normally they would have screamed, and normally this would only have added to the spectacle of the sacrifice, but circumstances dictated some caution, and so they were gagged. The shamans’ curved knives opened their bellies; steel slicing cleanly through naked flesh.
Their chant continued through the muffled shriek of death wails. Thick hrummish claws moved with surprising deftness, removing their organs whole, each in turn, lifting them in offering to Shaa, and then committing them to the cold, smokeless fire that smoldered at their feet. The bodies twisted in their bindings, muscles jerking first in defiance, and then in the spasms of last breath. Their captives’ eyes stared dull and glassy at their murderers by the time their hearts were taken and shared in the grisly blood meal that concluded the sacrifice. It was a poor offering. Two old men and a barren woman offered little in the way of iiyir to feed their spell, but in the end it would be little enough, he supposed.
You once warred with legions under your care. The truth of Gai’s taunt echoed in his thoughts. Urghuar were no Black Robes, no matter if he had taught them to join and cast some magics in communion. And these feral warriors were no Third Legion, even if he’d taught them to march straight and hold their lines in battle.
True enough, he admitted to himself. But it is not the sword alone that makes a swordsman dangerous; it is his control of the blade. The urghuar did not serve the Magistry, and the hrumm did not serve the Imperial Crown. They serve me, even before Malagch. And that is my power.
Dieavaul turned away from the blood ritual to look once more upon the flickering watch fires of Kirith Vae. There was yet a great deal of open ground between them and the castle. Even if his stratagem was successful and the spell of concealment worked as planned, the advantage of surprise would not last long. He knew better than to underestimate these humans who lived on the frontier. They were a rugged breed, resourceful and tenacious.
But Dieavaul knew he could not turn back now. Taking the castle was out of the question, of course – even Malagch did not intend or hope for that. But if Osrith was not foolish enough to bring him the dreamstone, then he would lay siege to Kirith Vae and lay waste to the lands surrounding it until those within were desperate for a quick solution. Osrith and the stone would be his ransom, and for the price of one man, the baroness would certainly spare her people the ravages of war. She would remember the sting of his sword. She would give him up.
Dieavaul spotted his hrummish war-chieftain supervising the assembly of a light ballista fifty feet deep in the woods. He covered the distance in a few ticks, though none could see any evidence of hurriedness in his manner.
“Pakh Ma Thatt, report,” he commanded.
The seven-foot hrumm turned and bowed deeply at the waist, its topknot spilling wiry black hair over its tattooed cheekbones. Where most hrumm were marked with at least a bolt or two of their lightnings, Thatt’s face was a veritable storm of black blood-ink. “We waits your command, Gal Pakh,” it said proudly through a thick accent. Dieavaul rarely spoke their guttural language, and their attempts to master his native
aulden tongue merely aggravated him. Human speech provided the easiest compromise. “Whens the shamans call fog to hide us, whens is time we ride.”
Dieavaul nodded his approval. “Shaa will feast on the blood we spill. This offering will be a rich one.”
Thatt smiled broadly, exposing its yellowed, needle-sharp teeth in a carnivorous grin. “Leave trees whens fog come. Whens suns awake, attack swift and take humans with many great surprises.”
Many great surprises, Dieavaul thought, suppressing a grin. The bards would be sore tasked to fit that into one of their great ballads. Small wonder the hrumm preferred howling to song.
Despite its simple speech and brutish manner, Dieavaul had great confidence in his pakh ma. Humans, underkin, and even his own disowned race had undersold the hrumm on intelligence for centuries. While they had little grasp of architecture or invention, they were quick learners and cunning warriors. His troops lacked the good manners of the Knights Lancer, but they were not wanting for martial expertise. Aside from this, of course, they were even easier to manipulate with religion than humans. Where the humans were simple enough to maneuver through creative use of their fears and superstitions, they had many disparate gods and beliefs, and no one common bit to rein the lot of them where he would. The hrumm’s single-minded devotion to Shaa proved most convenient, however.
Then, with a great deal of surprise, Dieavaul fell backward from the jarring impact of an arrow striking him squarely in the temple. The feathered shaft splintered from the blow, and the razor-sharp broad-tip careened wildly into the air. Though his protective enchantments had saved his life, they failed to save his balance. With a grimace, he toppled to the ground.
The shrieking of arrows filled the camp as hrumm and dringli bodies began dropping to the earth. Thatt helped Dieavaul up from the ground, and they sprinted deeper into the mass of swirling bodies. Thatt barked orders as it ran, and the soldiers obeyed without question, taking cover and searching the trees for their ambushers, but not before a score of their number lay dead and several more bleeding.
Dieavaul crouched next to Thatt behind an overturned wain, waiting for the attack to renew, but there was only a disquieting silence. He surveyed the camp and noted all three of the urghuar amongst the dead, each well-feathered with arrows. There would be little obscuring fog now unless he reached into his own reserves. A large-scale conjuration would leave him distracted, drained and vulnerable, and that he wouldn’t do.
The damning accuracy of the attack arose his suspicions. The assailants had been very precise, very quiet, and knew enough about the hrumm to spot the garishly masked shamans and know what they were attempting. The Border Knights did not excel at such stealthy attacks; they were more for thundering charges. The local garrison was accounted for elsewhere by Thatt’s scouts, and the farmers who populated these lands simply did not possess the skill.
They had watched the innocents’ deaths, he thought, with growing realization. They allowed the urghuar to butcher them and siphon their iiyir, and only then did they act.
“Wilhorwhyr,” he whispered to Thatt, with no attempt to hide his contempt.
Hatred and fear mingled in Pakh Ma Thatt’s expression. “Raogmyztsanogg,” it muttered in reply.
The Dread Forest Watchers, Dieavaul translated. Perhaps the hrummish word is more descriptive, after all.
Foolish chivalry, short-sighted heroism, or ignorance of the intricacies in blood ritual would have moved most humans to act prematurely in an attempt to save the captives from their plight. But letting them die and then killing the urghuar, along with all of the newly harvested iiyir, making waste of the blood ritual at the expense of innocent life. That restraint, precision and cold calculation could only be the work of wilhorwhyr.
“Send a picket line of your best scouts into the woods. We cannot allow them to destroy all we have worked for here – to taint our great sacrifice.” He turned to look directly into the hrumm’s yellow-red eyes and smiled the smile that made even Pakh Ma Thatt’s blood run cold. “Algiil ma hil,” he whispered. It was one of the few phrases he deigned speak in the hrummish tongue.
We hunt.
Bloodhawk watched the hrummish scouts enter the edge of the forest with his keen halfblood eyes. Clumsy enough, though not so loud and careless as the average human soldier. The hrumm were, after all, predators in the wild. Even this domesticated army of Malakuur still carried the most basic instincts of their race.
Brushing a strand of jet-black hair from his weathered face, Bloodhawk weighed the situation. He and his companions numbered only five, and the army gathered here nearly five hundred. The death of the urghuar, worth perhaps ten times their number in simple warriors, had accomplished much. And the Pale Man, protected by powerful magic and surrounded by fanatical bodyguards, was not easy prey.
Enough, then, for now. We have more pressing matters to deal with at the castle. With the sharp whistle of a nightwing, he signaled retreat.
Bloodhawk waited patiently for his companions to reach his position. They arrived swift and silent, moving like wind through the leaves, their passing murmur indistinguishable from the chorus of forest voices around them. First Two-Moons and then Symmlrey appeared. Two-Moons had the leather face of a veteran outdoorsman, his brown eyes watching his young aulden student carefully from within their wrinkled burrows of flesh. Symmlrey, her fine features still flushed from battle, stood tall beside her human mentor. Her devotion was common to the newly initiated. The bond with a Guide was an intense one, forged in the fires of their dangerous training and cooled in the chill of an even harsher reality. Only two short years ago, Bloodhawk had felt the same for Singing Arrow. How long ago and far away that time, yet the feeling still lingered.
Two-Moons wove his hands through the air in elaborate gesticulations. What of Khyri and Jasper?
Bloodhawk frowned and responded in the silent tongue of weaving fingers. Should be near. I look now. Wait.
Two-Moons and Symmlrey took watch in the lower limbs of the trees as Bloodhawk shouldered his recurve bow and melted into the foliage. Jasper was young and newly bonded; he could have fallen to misfortune. Khyri would doubtless lend aid, but it was odd that she sent out no call for help. This troubled him. If it was Khyri who by some circumstance had suffered misadventure, Jasper may have panicked and not signaled distress.
Or they could both be dead.
Bloodhawk blinked away his speculation. He had no time for such conveniences. He would need to make a small hole in hrumm perimeter to infiltrate their lines and clear a path for retreat. It did little good to sneak in if the path to escape was blocked. With most of the wildlife scared away by the siege-craft construction, it was not difficult for the wilhorwhyr to detect the group of hrumm patrolling this area. It was a small party, numbering only six. He paced them, examining their deployment and judging which of the warriors posed the most risk. When he was satisfied with his appraisal, he allowed them to pass his position and fell in behind, unnoticed.
The rear guard had an iron necklet about its throat. This made a silent attempt at its jugular difficult. There were other alternatives, of course. Bloodhawk withdrew a long, thin dagger from its sheath at his waist and matched his victim’s pace for a few yards. Then, as the hrumm was in mid-stride, he deftly kicked its supporting leg at the knee joint and pulled the off-balance scout backward onto him, cushioning its fall even as he plunged the stiletto through the unprotected eye socket and into the brain. Its death was quick and without even a gurgle.
The next was much easier prey. With no protection on its neck, a deep slice to the throat rendered it lifeless in moments, the warning of its gurgling lifeblood drowned out by the soft steps of its companions. Bloodhawk moved on to the third and smallest of the hrumm, breaking its neck like a rotten branch and lowering the corpse to the ground.
The point guard stopped and held up its hand to halt their march. The hrumm stopped and looked around suspiciously as Bloodhawk felled another hrumm with a dagger thrust be
tween the two plates of armor protecting its back, severing its spinal column. By the time the last two hrumm had turned around to face him, Bloodhawk pressed the attack with longsword and dagger in hand. He swung his sword in a high arc aimed at its head, but the hrumm reached up and blocked it easily with its own blade. Less than a heartbeat later, Bloodhawk’s dagger plunged into the exposed armpit of its outstretched limb. The hrumm fell dead with cold steel in its heart.
Bloodhawk ducked the crossbow bolt that shot toward him and tackled the last hrumm, its hand locked helplessly on the now-empty weapon. It tried to scream, but as they landed on the frozen turf, Bloodhawk’s knee was planted firmly in its belly. The only sound it made was the whoosh of air from its lungs. Bloodhawk rose and drove his sword into the hrumm’s chest, pinning it lifeless to the earth.
Bloodhawk withdrew his longsword, wiped it clean and returned it to its scabbard. After retrieving his dagger from the neighboring corpse, he set off again toward the hrummish camp, to the area Khyri and Jasper had marked as theirs. It was not long before he heard the noise of battle. From the sound of it, things boded ill for his friends. Hrummish war cries, unabashedly exultant, echoed along with the clash of steel on steel. He doubled his pace, no longer worried about the threat of sound. With the battle raging so near, there was little chance of his soft tread attracting any notice.
The scene he discovered weighed heavily on his heart. His companions were in a small gully not twenty-five feet below him, surrounded by tens of jeering hrumm. It was considered a point of pride, even a coming of age, for the hrumm to taunt a wilhorwhyr in the wild and escape with its life. It was a dangerous tradition, a test of courage and skill, and one that often met with failure. Outnumbered to this extent, however, there was little for the beasts to fear, and their scurrilous yells were many.
Jasper stood over Khyri’s unconscious form. An arrow pierced his right leg just below the knee, speckling the snow around him with blood. The young man held his longsword out in an unwavering challenge, slowly shifting on his good leg. His face was drawn and pale, his lips tight with pain, but his eyes gleamed with a courage and defiance that would make Khyri proud. In his mind, Bloodhawk could see her risking all to save her wounded Initiate, running back into danger to bring him out safely. But things had gone awry, and now, unless he could stop this, they would both die. He almost called for Two-Moons, but realized the risk was too great. Someone had to reach the castle. Bloodhawk was willing to sacrifice his life, but he could not sacrifice their mission. With some resignation, he let loose the cry of the desert kess. The hrumm hardly noticed the wispy call, but Two-Moons and Symmlrey would understand just as surely as Jasper. To his credit, the boy did not betray the realization to his foes with so much as a twitch.
In Siege of Daylight Page 7
